1st Annual Valley of the Sun Fun Ford Weekend
JDM Engineering Tough Truck Highlights

We at Friesen Racing made our presence soundly felt at the 1st Annual Valley of the Sun Fun Ford Weekend at Firebird Int'l Raceway, Phoenix, Arizona. Not only did our continuing '99 Lightning effort dip back into the 12.50s, it threatened to blast out another 12.4x pass. But, I as the author, am getting ahead of myself.

When we heard that the Fun Ford Weekend was going to host two Western state events, we knew that we had to attend them both. Unfortunately, a prior engagement kept our team from being at LA County Raceway, held November 1-2, 2003. Just because we couldn't make the first event, didn't mean we weren't going to show for the Arizona event! With DOTs firmly mounted and the chassis tuned, Friesen Racing decended on Firebird Int'l Raceway to compete in the JDM Engineering Tough Truck Class!

For those readers that aren't familiar with how the Tough Truck class is run, here is a brief explanation: this class is run on a best-of-three runs minus 0.1-second index. This means, no dial-in handicaps. Running under/quicker than this index is treated as a "breakout", just like other forms of bracket racing. All runs are made on a 0.5-second Sportsman tree, unlike Open Comp classes that are similar aside from using a 0.4-second Pro tree.

With Wes, my late father, participating in the very same class at the 2002 Fun Ford event at Ennis, Texas, without a victory, we knew that we had to conquer the field for him, also. With expectations to win planted in our minds, we went to the track for the first day of time trials and qualifying runs. The accompanying photos of Saturday's time slips can almost speak for themselves! What looked like a day full of consistent 12.7x runs, got exciting when we unloaded a 12.58 and backed it up over an hour later with a 12.60, all on 91 octane pump gas! With all of the qualifying done for Saturday, we knew that our index was to be 12.48.

Sunday morning was to be almost a carbon copy of Saturday, in regard to the weather. The air was quite cool, but the winds from Saturday never really materialized. This made the racing much better. Our opponents for this event were two Bartling Motorsports entries (one a first-generation, the other a second-generation), the DMP Lightning, another second-generation Lightning, a midsize Ranger, and a PowerStroke Dually. In all, seven truck racers were couragious enough to run an Open Comp-style class. After arriving at the track and performing all of our normal setup tasks, another time trial run was made. The result was another 12.58 blast! Could we get closer to our index of 12.48? Would we fail to be competitive? Read on!

Our answer was realized as we caught our first opponent, the PowerStroke Dually, at around 900 feet out! We ran 12.65, on the brakes! We had the starting line advantage by 0.68-second, which allowed our time to overcome the Dually's closer run. The private-owned Lightning defeated the Ranger. The two Bartling entries went at it, where the second-generation truck held off the first-generation truck. The DMP Lightning had the bye-run, by nature of being the quickest qualifier. With the second round same another laddered opponent. That was none other than the number one qualifier in the DMP Lightning! This would be a battle at the starting line. Both drivers fell short at the tree. The DMP entry fell shorter, where their 11.33 on a 11.31 index couldn't beat our 12.53! Yes, we slayed a the giant! When DMP truck couldn't overcome our starting line advantage, discretion became the better part of valor. So, the author lefted at around 1100 feet out. Bartling's second entry, driven by Bill Berry, keep the only Lightning left from advancing to the final round. This is where our things begin to slow down. With the limited truck count, the final round of Tough Truck was put on the back burner for about two-and-a-half hours! If you wanted suspense, we delivered!

The Fun Ford staff wanted to have all of the final rounds to be run together, so we had to wait along a couple other classes. When it came time for all of the final rounds to be run, it was Bartling's Bill Berry and Friesen Racing's Lightning left to run for the purse! The Tough Truck class had been run second in line all day, and that wasn't about to change for the final round. Now it would be two Arizona second-generation Lightnings in the final! When our class' turn came, Berry's truck and ours lined up in the burnout box. All day, we had been making a show of force, emerging from a cloud of tire smoke so thick that it actually blocked the starting line light beams. And, we didn't let up with the smoke show at what could be our finest hour, yet!

With our respective burnouts complete, we two staged up to see who would be the victor and runner-up. Berry's truck had the slower index, which meant his side of the tree activated first. With his index at 12.88 and ours at 12.48, there wasn't much time for our truck to wait. Berry flinched and went 0.482 red, handing us the victory, provided we didn't foul worse! We proved up to the task, leaving the line with a 0.545 green! We didn't catch Berry at the end, but we ran ended the fight with another consistent 12.53!

Of course, the victory always gets the spoils, but we didn't forget to congratulate all of our opponents on a well run race. After all, we didn't have anything against our opponents, it was only competition. Yes, we got the check, we got the Winner's Plaque, we got the Winner's Medal, we got the Winner's Circle photos with the girls. But, this author isn't so quick to forget one detail. I went to race my dad's truck. I worked all season to bring him another win, like he would have done it. I dedicated my race to my late father, Wes Friesen. I think that without his help, when I started racing, this would still be only a dream of mine.




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